Posted
by
Zonkon Wednesday May 17, 2006 @01:37PM
from the define-mostly dept.

jchenx writes "One of the biggest questions remaining after the Sony press conference and E3 last week was whether or not the core PS3 package could be upgraded to the premium one. It looks like that question has been answered. GI.biz reports that the core version can upgraded with WiFi and memory card adapters, as well as a higher capacity hard drive. However, HDMI output will be non-upgradeable."

Although, I suppose it is always nice to get confirmation, didn't we know this stuff already?

Wi-Fi- Even if there was no sony specific adapter, you could always use an Ethernet bridge.

Card reader: I suppose it is nice to hear confirmation on this one. Still, it's not something I'd use that often.

Hard drive: Wasn't this announced to be removable a while ago? And if it's removable, you can be damn sure that Sony will let you spend more money than a hard drive actually costs to upgrade it.

HDMI: What's this about "mostly upgradable"? Maybe it's just me, but of the features on the $500 PS3 that're missing, this is by far the most important one. Granted, the studios don't seem to be using HDCP at the moment, but if they do eventually, you're screwed. Hello near SD resolution without buying a whole new player.

I'm not a PS gamer so I'm not sure but wouldn't the card reader be nearly necessary if you wanted to play your older games on your new system (the whole backwards compatibility thing they brag about)?
I guess you could just start over from scratch but that'd be frustrating to some people at least.

So, if you haven't seen these charts [curmudgeongamer.com], view them... now.

The PS3 price is insane.

It's not insane historically speaking (see the charts) but it's insane to price it at $500 or $600.

The Wii is rumored to come out at $200-$250, so that's two for the price of the minimal PS3. But to compare the PS3 to Xbox 360, we have can look at it's price percentage. Between min and max, PS3's percent difference is (600-500)/500 or approximately 20%. The Xbox 360 has a difference of (400-300)/300 which is 33%. What's the point of upgrading later when another 20% of the bill will get you the full thing? To me that sounds foolish. I can definitely see that working with the Xbox but not when you're talking about prices around $600. If I'm going to pay that much, might as well throw on another $100.

I'm not concerned if it's upgradable and, frakly, I won't be too concerned with the PS3 until I see what it can do. Can it do twice what the Wii or Xbox 360 can? That remains to be seen.

What is most interesting about those charts that you linked to is that fact the the 3 most expensive consoles (Neo Geo, 3DO and Saturn) flopped, while their cheaper competitors (such as PS2 and SNES) were highly successful.

Sony should clearly see that releasing the PS3 at $600 is suicide born out of arrogance.

well, the fact that previous consoles who sold for a high price failed is not a guarantee that selling a console for a high price will make it fail. What these consoles failed to prove is that a higher price would provide a higher customer experience, a better gaming experience.I guess all we can do right now is speculate and wait to see if the PS3 will deliver, I can't see myself buying it for the blue-ray or the HDTV capability since i dont even have a HDTV, but if sony proves me that their Ps3 will deliv

What these consoles failed to prove is that a higher price would provide a higher customer experience, a better gaming experience.

Actually, the NeoGeo was MILES ahead of the competition at the time (1992). By far, a superior console. However, nobody was willing to pony up the scratch to purchase one. I rented one with my roommate at the time, and we spent the entire weekend on it, SLEEPLESS, it was that good. However, there was no friggen way I was parting with that kind of money.

I knew plenty of people that wanted to buy a Neo-Geo and even a few that were going to buy one.

But then they/we factored in the $200+ cartridges. That's what killed the Neo-Geo for even the die-hard gamers. The one video store here would rent out a Neo Geo with 5 cartridges for $40 for the weekend. Bargain of a lifetime.

In one way, I have to congratulate Sony for milking the early adopters, but the parents that see the PS3 for $600 this Xmas will remember that $600 when Johnny asks for it next spring or summer for his birthday. I remember the 3DO at $700, not later down the road at $500, or even at $399 when it was treading water in the worst kind of way. Initial pricing sticks in people's minds.

True. Given the limited supply of early 360s, Microsoft could've gotten away with charging that much too, but not since production finally caught up a few months ago. Unfortunately for Sony, I don't think they can afford to cut prices that soon with that expensive Bluray drive.

not to mention MS and Sony being so money orientated. I don't recall hearing an announcement that there would be 2 Wii's. Only the expensive one gets the cool controllers.

This whole xbox360 'core' and 'premium' and then ps3 'high' and 'low' thing is RIDICULOUS. Good job Nintendo for giving everyone the same thing with a reasonable price, rather than a crippled machine for a lower price.

What the hell did the PS2 compete with that was in that list?The reason why the 3DO and Saturn failed are games. The reason why the NeoGeo is ocnsidered a flop is the fact that the games cost as much as the system itself.

The problem here isn't price, it's games. Between Virtua Fighter 5, MGS4, and god knows what else for PS3... I'm buying a PS3 when I can afford it. The 3DO never had a killer app. The Saturn never had a killer app. The Neo's killer apps were just too damned expensive...

It becomes even clearer when you compare opportunity costs. For the price of a PS3 and one game (~$660), you could buy a Wii and 10 games! (Charitably favoring the PS3 by assuming the Wii starts at $250 and has $40 games.) And to even notice the HDTV difference, you have to buy such a TV, which will cost you $1000, which could have bought 25 Wii games. (!) Yes, this ignores sales tax, but since it's an opportunity cost comparison, the conclusions hold regardless.

Sure, but let's be honest, the DVD player in the PS2 sucked. Skipping, freezing, a pain in the ass to control unless you bought the remote. I'm not exaggerating when I say that every single person I know that owns a PS2 bought a stand alone DVD player after the fact.

I know somebody who still uses their PS2 as a DVD player. Of course, they live near Tokyo, in a tiny tiny little room. So, the market for the PS3 Blu-ray drive is... Tokyo. I mean, that's 35 million people, that should be enough, right?

every single person I know that owns a PS2 bought a stand alone DVD player after the fact.

I certainly did, and felt gypped that I bought into the "it's not really so expensive because it's a DVD player, too" pitch. I won't fall for that one again. Especially now it seems that there is no way to get digital video output out of the lower-priced model. Sure, Sony is promising not to degrade the composite image on their own HD movies...for now. But for how long? And how about other studios?

So, if you haven't seen these charts [curmudgeongamer.com], view them... now.

Immediately afterwards, superimpose the "how did this do in the marketplace" chart. From where I'm standing, it's pretty clear why we argue over Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, not Philips, SNK, and 3DO.

I'm not concerned if it's upgradable and, frakly, I won't be too concerned with the PS3 until I see what it can do. Can it do twice what the Wii or Xbox 360 can? That remains to be seen.

Well, that's easy. It will play (insert infinite number here) more High Definition movies than any other console out of the box. Love it or hate it, this is an integral part of the HD movement. by having an HD capable delivery platform, HD will take off. HD sets will fall in price, and so will the cost for movies with volu

It will play (insert infinite number here) more High Definition movies than any other console out of the box.

Only if an infinite number of Blu-Ray movie titles are offered for sale, which I would have to say is unlikely. If there's more than even 100 titles released on BR-ROM in the first year, I'll be surprised.

Love it or hate it, this is an integral part of the HD movement. by having an HD capable delivery platform, HD will take off.

HD broadcast and cable TV capabilities have been around for a while now,

HD adoption is one of those chicken-and-egg paradigm shifts like you see ever so often. It's really no different than the DVD adoption was. First you have to have media available (dvd movies/hd cable or satellite content) then you have to have something to view it with (dvd player/hdtv). Now, the media powerhouses don't want to blow alot of money on something like HDTV cameras and editing equipment, and the enormous storage required, without getting much of a return on their investment.
HD will remai

Actually I too remember getting a NES around christmas or shortly there after (definately within 6-8 months of launch) for about $80. I even remember a huge promotion about the $80 price tag. If it debuted for $200 when and why did the price take such a drastic nose dive?

All Nintendo, Sega, XBOX, and Sony systems do not carry MSRP's, they have MAP - Minimum Advertised Price. Thats why Best Buy doesn't run sales on them, thats why no one runs sales on them - until they get the go ahead from the manufacturer.

"Fact"? The units will come down in price significantly but upgrades may not do so at all, or the price reductions will be so minor that they are negligible. Well, at least until the end of the PS/3's lifespan. The consoles are loss leaders, they have to attract you to buy in. Upgrades are for people who have already bought in, and priced accordingly, and some upgrades are primarily for a minor segment of the market.

In 1985 the average price of a new PC was a few grand, today the average price is only a few hundred.

An IBM AT might have cost you $3000 in 1985, but a Commodore 64 was considerably less.

But your point stands: the technology inside a Sega Genesis that made it cost $200 in 1989 is now cheap enough that the entire system can fit on a single chip and fit (along with 6 games) inside a replica controller, which you can buy at Wal*Mart for $19.97. And I guarantee you they're making a hefty profit on those thing

The truth here is that Sony has made a mis-step. First of all, they've got time to work on a better core system. However, if the only real thing driving the price from the core to the super-duper is the Blu-Ray Drive, then they should have exact same specs, but with no HDMI output.

I mean, I can understand that.

But to have other things crippled too? Lower hard drive (by that little amount of gig space) is not going to affect the price that much. And if you're losing near $400-500 per unit already, what's another $50?

But really, there's no excuse to not have the other bells and whistles, when WE KNOW that the reason for the cost justification is that HDMI output stuff. THAT'S the cost (well, at least 80% of it.) So I can justify that a little more. But the upgrades will likely be like the 360's where it will cost more to upgrade piece by piece than it would to buy the higher priced system. To have that, WITHOUT the ability to ever do HD graphics(which, IMO, is what next-gen is about, at least for Sony and MS), well, it's just sub-par.

I am NOT a fanboy of any of the three systems (actually I really liked the Turbo Grafix 16 back in the day:)) but Sony really is making some hardcore mistakes that will cost them in the long run in the gaming division.

I don't think they're out of business by ANY stretch of the words, but between the loss of rumble (for a less than stellar motion sensor) in the controllers, the price, and the lack of TRUE functionality on the core system, they're going to piss a lot of loyal customers off, enough to check out other systems (or at least NOT buy the PS3).

HDMI port or not, you can still play your games in up to 1080p via component [if your cables are good enough and your HDTV supports it]. you can still watch blu-ray movies on it; at least for the far foreseeable future.half of us dont own tvs that do more than 720p, or 1080i anyways. the other set of us only have component or [simple] DVI input. HDTV owners with HDMI connectors are in the minority for now. if you dont plan to replace the $1500 - $3000 HDTV you/just/ bought in the last 2 years or so, why wo

Both Sony AND MS are insisting that the HD era is ready for primetime, and both companies are touting that aspect of their new consoles. Sony is not "the company trying to plug...," that's the entire movie industry and software industry, including MS. The fact is, Sony is distancing itself from that aspect of HD video. They have already promised to not use HDCP with their own movies. The reason for that is simply the lack of compatibility with over 90% of current HD televisions.

Sony can promise all they want in regard to their own movies. The minute a big studio decides to follow the "down-rezzing via component" path, however, is the minute that the $500 PS3 becomes a pain in the ass and not fully functional as a Blu-Ray player. That isn't FUD (or, if it is, then it's accurate, very possible FUD) because the people who pushed for the inclusion of that damned protection in the hardware are exactly the people who will be deciding whether or not to use it.

I get that this issue only affects a minority of potential owners, but that's the group of people who would most want an HD movie format in the first place. Pure gamers will only care about the games and the issue isn't that big for them. But, they should still be aware that this secondary functionality of the PS3 can be easily crippled by the movie industry.

Sony can promise all they want in regard to their own movies. The minute a big studio decides to follow the "down-rezzing via component" path, however, is the minute that the $500 PS3 becomes a pain in the ass and not fully functional as a Blu-Ray player. That isn't FUD (or, if it is, then it's accurate, very possible FUD) because the people who pushed for the inclusion of that damned protection in the hardware are exactly the people who will be deciding whether or not to use it.

I never said other people weren't. Blu-Ray HD movies are a selling point of the PS3 and certain resolutions for those movies may not be available from non-HDMI connections. This is a conflict in business strategy.

I wasn't commenting about MS in my previous post, but since you mention them, the 360 is HD and all the HD functions are available to all HDTVs. The 360 has different problems with the different versions. When the HD-DVD drive com

whats going to be even more interesting is watching what MS does with their HDDVD drive. since the xbox 360 doesnt even have the option to output to HDMI. unless they stick in a dedicated output solution which would drive the cost of the standalone drive skyhigh, i dont see how they will avoid a worse fate.i guess youre asking why that matters? maybe you werent aware of this simple fact, but HD-DVD drives follow AACS, use HDCP and utilize the ICT too!!!!! as a matter of fact, that security was made specific

What a lot of people seem to overlook when they're trashing the high price point of the PS3 is that it will be a fully functional Blu-Ray player too! Sure, the 360 is $200 cheaper but how much do you think that HD-DVD player they're promising is going to cost? Mark my words it won't be a penny below $200. Microsoft is just setting everyone up for a one-two punch:
Now: "$400 for a 360 isn't bad... I think I'll buy it."
Next Christmas: "$300 for an HD-DVD drive Xbox add-on isn't bad... I think I'll buy it."

I'm no fanboy, but I've got to admit that Nintendo's offerings in the Wii and DS are looking a lot more attractive. I like to keep things simple and inexpensive, and right now the PS3 offerings have me thoroughly confused, as I'm sure some of the developers are as well. When the system configurations and price are getting more press than the games, there could be trouble. As for me, unless I see something compelling or a big price drop in the 360, I'm going to wait until the Wii comes out and then decide wh

I'd still rather buy the cheaper and more innovative Wii, which I won't need to spend more money to upgrade.

Karma burning time...

I really, really hope the Wii lives up to the expectations set for it. I really do. Because if it sucks in any way, Nintendo is on such a pedestal in the community right now that they are going down hard if the Wii is not exactly what you are imagining.

I am extremely interested in that console, but specifically I want to know what its like to play for over an hour. I could

Here's to hoping that the lack of HDMI on the low-end model will keep content providers from ever implementing the ICT flag on movies. There's a slim chance that this move by Sony will keep that from happening.

Sorta offtopic If either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD gain a foothold in the market it's nearly guaranteed that ICT will be coming.The studios won't be using ICT initially because they don't want to piss off the only people who will be interested in the "negt gen" DVDs to begin with, the early adopters. The people who bought early HDTVs are also likely candidates to purchase early HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players.

My prediction: Once one or the other wins the format war (doesn't matter if it's HD-DVD or Blu-Ray) and next ge

Lastly, the studios will see no need to turn this on as long as sales are good

The copyright cartel has shown time and again that they are willing to do things that aren't good for their bottom line.

CD sales were never higher than in the heyday of the original Napster, every time the RIAA shuts down a P2P site or sues another group of P2P users their market share goes down, not up, the they continue on this self destructive path.

It won't matter that leaving ICT turned off can only increase sales, the

Most players in the US are built elsewhere in the world, on the same assembly lines as players that get exported to other regions. Even if region locking is enabled by default on some units that ship, it's not likely that they have fundamentally different enough designs that per region they could not be easily overcome by changing a jumper setting or flashing firmware.

Here's to hoping that the lack of HDMI on the low-end model will keep content providers from ever implementing the ICT flag on movies. There's a slim chance that this move by Sony will keep that from happening.

I think Sony has done Microsoft a big favour, in a way.

Because neither the X360 in any config, nor the PS3 in the lower-end config, will do digital HD output (as opposed to analog component HD output, which is frankly fine)... there is an excellent chance that these two choices have basically st

How much it costs at launch really makes almost no
difference. If you want a better idea of its "real" price,
we need to ask how much will it cost 13 months after
launch.

I expect we'll have the exact opposite opinions then...
Because, while the Wii will probably only come down by 20-30%
(a drop of around $50), the PS3 will most likely plummet to
half its original cost.

$600 for a game console... Sony apparently learned
nothing from NeoGeo's lesson.

IT was a home system with perfect arcade replicas. Not ports but exact same hardware... They weren't going for a mainstream console for every home like sega and nintendo. Otherwise their system wouldn't have been priced upwards to $800 with $200+ dollar cartridges. Yeah you could by a supernintendo with the price of one neo geo game.

Actually, the Neo games were ports. But both carts had the same program data on them, and the system selected which program data to use. There's a problem when using something like the UniBios or a Debug bios to switch a NeoGeo AES into MVS mode on certain carts. Some of the attract screens will be garbled because the AES lacks the fonts and other data used during the attract screens.

I don't think they [NeoGeo] intended to compete in the same market [as SNES/Genesis].

Correct, they didn't. SNK marketed the NeoGeo as an upscale form of home gaming; one that not every customer could afford, but promising (and delivering) a rarefied and special gaming experience for those that COULD afford it.

One might well ask why, then, you bother not only reading
said "lame ass opinion"s, but actually wasting your time
responding to them.

Are you the CEO of Sony? No?

No. Not the CEO, someone much more important
(in the aggregate) - A potential customer. And a potential
customer who makes quite a lot more than the average
member of the PS3's target market, at that (not bragging
here, just stating the obvious fact that most people wit

What's the basis for saying the PS3 will likely
drop to half its cost?

Fair question!

1) I honestly don't think it will sell well at
$600, passing above a critical mental threshold of "more
than $500". Perhaps Sony will prove me totally wrong on
that, but above $500, people start thinking in terms of
"half a thousand" rather than "five hundred".

2) The cost of producing the PS3 will drop as they
get into the swing of it... Even if they need
to sell the first million units so high to try to
recoup R

4) Never underestimate the stupidity of marketingIt's possible that the price is high so that Sony can cash in on PS3 launch and avoid shortages. That's not because they think shortages are bad, but because shortages mean "money's left on the table". Also from a certain demented point of view, they could announce a $200 price cut to roughly coincide the launch of Halo 3, to steal MS's thunder.

Who knows what Sony's got up their sleaves and what they're willing to do to win. Maybe the Xbox 360 has totally

The real deal on this is not compared to a XBOX360 or a Wii, its when compared to a blu-ray player.
The PS3 is $400 less than a blu-ray player, and its also a next-gen game player. I can see a lot of people who want to get a blu-ray player going for the PS3 instead, and then you have $400 to spend on games or movies.

You know what I can see? I can see people (especially the non-gaming movie watchers, who outnumber the gamers) asking themselves what the real difference is between an HD-DVD player and a Blu-Ray player, realizing that it's the price and skipping Blu-Ray altogether. The "flagship" HD-DVD players from Toshiba and RCA are $500 - half the cost of a Blu-Ray player and already matching the announced low-end PS3 price. And the HD-DVD player prices will inevitably go down much faster than the PS3 prices...

This is exactly what Sony is hoping for, sacrificing PS3 sales to try to push their Blu-Ray agenda. Unfortunatley it may be ultimately successful in establishing Blu-Ray as the winner in the next-gen DVD format wars.

Alternatively it could backfire and cause both Blu-Ray as well as the PS3 itself could end up failing.

If a PS3 is $400 cheaper than any other blue-ray player out there, why in the world would any other MFG want to build a blue-ray player? If I am Panasonic or someone Sony has created a format and is selling the cheapest player for it. They have killed their own market.

The PS3 is $400 less than a blu-ray player, and its also a next-gen game player. I can see a lot of people who want to get a blu-ray player going for the PS3 instead, and then you have $400 to spend on games or movies.

And I can see a lot of Blu-Ray player manufacturers (all three of them?) saying "O shit! The PS3 is stealing all our sales!" and reducing the MSRP of their standalone players to the $500-600 range. So much for that "value" argument -- especially since it's still to be determined whether Blu-

I bought the "PS2 is not so expensive because you don't have to buy a DVD player" argument. And then the DVD playback from the PS2 turned out to suck and I ended up buying a DVD player anyway. I'm not falling for that scam again. Besides, at least DVD was a huge step up from VHS, and I didn't have to worry about some titles being released for a competing standard. On my 34" HDTV, HD is only a small step up from DVD progressive.

I think some people are confused about HDMI [wikipedia.org] here. You do NOT need an HDMI cable/connection to view high def (1080p). You can get high def with component video [wikipedia.org] as well, which supports up to 1080p resolution. Both PS3 versions will have component out (AFAIK). From what I've read and seen, a high def signal looks the same in HDMI or component.

In regards to the PS3, you should only care about HDMI if a) that's the only input your TV supports (mine has 1 HDMI, 2 component) or b) you're concerned about buying a DRM burdened Blu-Ray movie that only allows a HDMI connection.

You do NOT need an HDMI cable/connection to view high def (1080p).[unless you buy]...a tv with only hdmi connectors or a DRM burdened Blu-Ray movie that only allows a HDMI connection.

So you are saying you don't need it unless you do need it. And given we don't know whether analog hidef tvs or unprotected blu-ray discs will even be available a few years from now, how can we decide if we do or do not need it?

Yeah, 20GB, that would never fly today. Apple ditched the 20G iPod ages ago, and would never think of selling 1-4GB ones. It's pretty clear that 60G is where it's at, given the 50G+ capacity of Blu-Ray you'll need a 60G drive to get all the games you own on there at once. It's not like they'd read off the disc and merely cache some data and savegames or anything.

So basically they'll take off all the interesting stuff, and then make you buy it later? Let's hope Sony doesn't start selling cars... they'd probably sell them for $2000 new, engine, seats, transmission, and wheels extra.

The PS2 shipped with a removable backplate that you slot in a network adapter and hard drive. It makes sense that the wifi and smart card readers for the PS3 will be done in a similar way, possibly in the same module. It means Sony can flog wifi for $50, the larger HD for $150, the wireless controllers for $50 etc. and make the $100 difference between the two systems look like a good value proposition (of $200 value!). You'd might even find that the HDMI is some kind of internal daughterboard.

Microsoft did the same with the XBox 360, withholding things from the "Core" model to make people buy the regular model. At least all PS3s have a harddrive which will encourage games to make use of it.

One thing that everyone is forgetting is the total REAL cost of getting the damn thing (ps3) out the door. Obviously you would want to have at least one game and one extra controller. Let's just round it off at $100 for the two, which is about right. So we are now up to $700, before tax. Most states, including local, are around 8% on average, if not more, but lets round that down, which adds another $50 or so bucks to the pricetag. This bumps the price up to $750 out the door; $650 if you buy the useless cheaper one. That's a lot of freakin' change, man!

If gas jumps up because of Iran, Hurricanes, mutant clowns, then $750 bucks on a game system that really is only a hair better than it's primary competitor is looking very unattractive come Christmas. That is if Sony actually makes it out the gate this Christmas, which personally, I am having less faith in every day.

The Wii/360 combo is actually sounding better as the days go by.

Nintendo is certain to release the Wii at $199 and if the core price for the 360 drops to $249 (which would be the smartest more ever by M$) there is absolutely no way that Sony could ever gain enough marketshare to be anything but number three. The only people buying the PS3 at that point would be the Japanese, the hard core Sony nuts, the Final Fantasy XIVVIXXI nuts, and rich people who own really expensive home theater systems.

I predict that the PS3 will sell for about $2,500, or more on ebay the day it's released and pretty much stay that way for a long time. In fact, it's going to be a huge joke; only rock stars and the insanely rich will be able to afford it. The PS3 will become a status symbol. One thing is certain, history does repeat itself and last time around with the PS2, it took Sony 18 months to finally catch up with demand. To Sony's chagrin, this time it has serious competition already dug in and by the time Sony ramps up production to meet demand the next gen war will already be onto the next-next gen war. That's assuming that there will be demand for a $750 system.

Sony is strangling the golden goose because it wants it to lay platinum, gold and uranium eggs. Sony's goals for the PS3 are too great. It wants to be the magic black box that all consumer electronic manufacturers have dreamed of. Unfortunately, it's arriving about four years too soon. The smartest thing that Sony could do is drop Blu-Ray, forget about it, parnter up with HD DVD and call it a day and then chalk it up to another blunder and release the PS3 with a dvd drive and sell it for $299.

Personally, I can emphasize when the President of Sony says that the PS3 is probably "too cheap". The PS3 is an amazing piece of hardware for $600. It defines state of the art. Plus, it most likely is costing Sony at LEAST $800 to make the PS3, but the consumer does not care about such things.--

$500 for the *basic* machine, and then the ability to individually upgrade it, presumably at a total higher cost than getting the $600 model is just not attractive to me as a consumer. A ton of reasons to get the PS3 are in the premium machine, and by gutting them out to save a $100 makes the lower end one look like crap.

Sony made a fatal error here. Allow me to illustrate using cars as the analogy.

Wii is the Honda.Xbox 360 is the Lexus.PS3 is the BMW.

Each targets a different audience, which is most clearly defined as you go lower (Wii) or higher (PS3). The type of consumer that can afford a PS3 is much less common that the type that can afford the Wii, just like with cars. Sony, in an attempt to compensate for their lower end model (a 3 series BMW), offers upgrades that will make it functioanlly the same as its higher model (a 7 series BMW). Unfortunately, the people that CARE about money aren't the type to want to buy the BMW in the first place, let alone dump MORE money on it to upgrade it. When's the last time you saw some guy driving around a tricked out BMW?

As it stands, the high end Xbox 360 is BETTER than the crap version PS3 since it includes a hard drive, has wireless controller support, has a large and established Xbox Live community, etc. So why is it a consumer is going to choose PS3? Brand loyalty? Banking on that alone is a tough sell, Sony execs. If you're coming late to the market and using HARDWARE as your most intesely marketed difference, you either give us better hardware for the same or lower price, or you start changing your pitch.

I really would prefer to see Sony succeed, rather than roll over and give microsoft another monopoly.

But the management of this company is out of touch. Rather than use it's content division to help HW sales, it uses it, to poison the brand (DRM rootkits).

Next up it wants to use it's new game machine as a trojan horse for Blu-Ray. Good plan. Too bad they totally messed it up, but over pricing it and importantly not including digital video outputs (DVI/HDMI) at all, let alone not having HDCP to protect us from that ICT garbage.

Is there a Sony HD set that doesn't have HDMI inputs? Where is the obvious and needed synergy between product lines.

A trojan horse mentality works if you get it for free. Ie price it like your competetion, but give them a free bonus of Blu-Ray. If you force people not interested in Blu Ray, to pay more for Blu Ray, you likely just lost a sale.

People who keep talking about how insane the announced price for the PS3 is are conveniently forgetting the $2000 PS2s for sale on eBay during the initial release week. Witness the $1000+ XBox 360.The manufacturers have got to realize that if people can go buy one and turn right around and sell it for 2-3x markup, they're underpricing them.

Maybe if the price is still insane after the first month, I'll say Sony's insane. Until then, they're just pricing it at what they feel the market will bear.

The manufacturers have got to realize that if people can go buy one and turn right around and sell it for 2-3x markup, they're underpricing them.

The only reason this is true is because of the hype and artificial restrictions on supply. Why was Xbox 360 selling for $1000 plus at release? Microsoft restricted the release to a small number of units. The problem vendors have with setting the release price extremely high is twofold. First, it sours a large part of the market to the product based on price.

oh, and by the time they ever start setting the ICT flag on blu-ray movies [if they ever decide to do such], players will be so cheap that youll probably have already bought a dedicated standalone blu-ray player anyways, so movie playback sans HDMI will probably never be a major issue for most ps3 owners.

Well, that's great! Here I was concerned that we'd be dealing with paranoid movie executives who pushed hard for this kind of copy protection. I'm sure there will be no movies protected in this fashion and I'm absolutely willing to rely on their good and fair nature. And, what the heck! If they decide to implement that protection, I can just blow another stack of money on yet another Blu-Ray player. YAY!

personally, there are about ten devices in my house that play dvds. however, i only use my "dedicated" DVD player to watch movies on.with sony, Apple, Dell, Hitachi, HP, JVC, LG, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, TDK and Thomson jumping on board with Blu-ray. its likely that the next computer you buy will probably come with a blu-ray player. sony, dell and hp alone account for how much of the computer sales market? these drives/will/ become commonplace and take a steep drop in price

No shite. I wonder, though, why people are assuming that Blu-Ray is going to be the HD format of choice. HD-DVD players cost half as much as Blu-Ray players and the prices of HD-DVD players are going to go down MUCH faster than the prices of the two PS3 models (unless Sony decides to take a monstrous loss on those units). Even if Blu-Ray standalone players go down in price at the same rate as HD-DVD players, that would mean a $300 HD-DVD player would be competing against a $600 Blu-Ray player, $200 versu

if you just went out and bought a HDTV without HDMI input and you dont plan to upgrade your expensive HDTV for at least another 5- 10 years.

I think it's more about the mental aspect of knowingly buying something you CAN'T upgrade later. Basically, future-proofing yourself. It's the same reason people buy all these bells and whistles for things like their car or various consumer gadgets, that they never really end up using. But at the time of purchase, they like to think that someday they will.

I think a better question would be, "Why did SONY bother to include Blu-Ray?"Everyone keeps assuming that its because they want it to be the next "killer" format. I think thats just half the equation. As another poster mentioned, Blu-Ray drives will probably drop enough within a "reasonable" time-frame, so people will own a dedicated Blu-Ray viewer (to go with their new HDTV).

Perhaps SONY just wanted to put the biggest honking capacity they could for their disks, along with the ability to make burning bac

Probably the same reason that the Xbox 360 can't upgrade to HDMI. The output is 100% analog at the connector on the Xbox. Just adding a HDMI adapter won't do anygood. The Xbox.com forum is full of people requesting HDMI (especially after the HD-DVD announcement), but MS has said it can't be done do to the reason above. Seems like they've hurt themselves by doing so, but they were the first. If Sony does the same thing we may find out "who is more foolish? The fool or the fool who follows him?"

I guess I am missing something but why would HDMI not be upgradable. The standard XBOX 360 came with plain A/V cables that can be upgradable to component cables. I would assume that sony just like every other console has a special connection on the back where you have to buy a special approved cable that can have A/V, component or HDMI output.

Apples and oranges.

Component, RCA or VGA are all analog video connections.

DVI or HDMI are digital video connections.

You can convert from analog to analog pretty easy. You can convert from digital to digital pretty easy. You can get a cheap cable that converts from VGA to Component. You can get a cheap cable that converts from DVI to HDMI.

However, converting from analog to digital is an entirely different and very difficult matter. Go looking for a converter box that converts from component to DVI or from component to HDMI and you're going to be paying near a hundred dollars, and you may have to sacrifice picture quality.

The PS3, according to the SCEJ spec sheet published during E3, has a special "A/V Multi Out" connector on the back. You apparently plug a component video dongle into there. If Sony had wired the "A/V Multi Out" to provide digital data in addition to analog, you could plug in a dongle that converts to HDMI really cheap and be on your way. But they apparently didn't do this, and apparently they only provide analog. So you can get a cheap converter to component or RCA or VGA or whatever... but if you want a converter to HDMI or DVI, you are screwed forever, you have to go and spend another $600 on the HDMI output version of the PS3.

Similarly, it's going to be really cheap to upgrade that XBox 360 to component, because that's analog to analog. But the XBox 360 doesn't offer digital out, so you're not going to be able to upgrade it to DVI or HDMI without buying an entire new XBox 360 (assuming an XBox 360 with DVI or HDMI output even exists, which it doesn't.)

The really bizarre and crazy thing here is that Sony can't possibly be saving all that much money by doing this. It isn't that putting HDMI output on the cheap PS3, or putting digital information into the A/V multi out output that's already there, would be all that difficult. The only reason why all those analog-to-digital converters are so expensive is because they actually have to convert analog to digital, which is not a trivial act. When Sony is designing the PS3, though, they don't have to convert anything to anything. They've already got digital inside the box, and they actually have to convert it to analog before they can pump it out to the component video. Considering how easy it would have been to provide some mechanism that would allow a $500 PS3 to be upgraded to digital video output later (thus turning the $500 PS3 from the "broken version" into just the version that's missing a couple of bells and whistles) it's mind-boggling they are choosing to screw over their customers this way.

No HDMI does not mean no HD video. You can play HD quality video on a low end PS3 just fine, in fact it's what every X-Box360 owner will be doing because X-Box360 has no HDMI (or DVI for that matter) at all.